Possibly slated for a holiday launch, the device packs impressive hardware, with a 1.5 GHz quad-core 28 nm Snapdragon 4 Pro chip from Qualcomm, Inc. (QCOM), 2 GB of DRAM, LTE, and the same f/2.0 camera found in the popular HTC One X. The device also packs the same image processing and audio digital to analog conversion chips as the One X+ and 8X Windows Phone. The former chip allows you to save pictures from a video stream, while the latter Beats Audio chip enhances the quality of the sound piping out the headphone jack.

The phone will pack Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" (v1) with an upgrade to Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean v2) on the near horizon.

Verizon Wireless, a joint subsidiary of VerizonCommunications Inc. (VZ) and Vodafone Group Plc. (LON:VOD), has long been the most active player pushing Android on the U.S. market. While Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) also played a key role in early adoption, devices like the original Droid lured buyers onto the Android platform, and helped to ease the market's iPhone fever.

Nah I didn't, actually going to get myself a Surface in a month or so, tried it in the local MS store and loved it.

Also a buddy of mine wanted to check out some Win8 hardware in local Staples, we paid a visit there today and he bought Samsung ATIV Smart PC tablet, 11" with Atom and Win8 Pro inside. I was impressed too, actually I don't know now what to buy, Surface is super slick but this Samsung 11" Win8 slate can run all Windows games (well not Crysis obviously) and software and has battery life similar to Surface. around 9 hours so... man these holidays are crazy, I was kinda thinking about trying out Nexus stuff but then I tried Surface out of curiosity and immediately lost interest for any Android stuff for now.

Even eyeing Samsiong ATIV S to replace my Galaxy Note, maybe, just maybe, not sure yet. But it's not sold anywhere yet so... we'll see how it goes. Ballmer kinda surprised me with Win8 to be honest, I was brushing Windows off as a stale OS that's dying with desktops and all but man MS has came out swinging October 26th. Now we're talking some REAL competition at last.

Definitely not doing any moves now like purchasing Android stuff before I see Surface Pro. But even without it MS has done enough to pwn Android and iOS quite a bit in my eyes. Granted I'm a PC user and got used to Windows but still... even with my bias one can see MS is slowly waking up from its decade of monpolistic lethargy and apathy.

Check out Surface and any Atom tablet like Samsung ATIV 11", when you hold it in your hands I think you'll like it. ATIV is a desktop x86 Windows in your pocket (okay a large pocket but still...) and at last 100% usable by fingers because of the new friendly/easy UI and with full day battery life (unheard of for fast and responsive desktop Windows). And Surface oozes slickness, quality and polish, the main things I always liked about iPad and Playbook, and always found missing in Android.

"Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine." -- Bill Gates